Oscar Krupp uses a snow-blower to clear a path in front of his home in Williston on Thursday, March 13, 2014. / GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS

Kate Howard, 21, rests in a snowbank March 13 in Burlington following a snowstorm that dropped nearly 20 inches of powder on the city while she waits for a bank to open on College Street. / JOEL BANNER BAIRD/FREE PRESS

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There are plenty of cold, hard facts to support

assertions that the winter Vermont ostensibly left behind at the March 20 equinox was a doozy. And, wouldn’t you know it, those reams of data also support a more tempered judgment. We had it both ways. Anecdotal evidence, collected and recorded with varying degrees of accuracy, staggers between (and beyond) the numeric benchmarks. What and whom are we to believe? Even the experts, it turns out, advocate a hybrid assessment of this winter — and any winter. They ask us to flip through historic records, prehistoric evidence and climate forecasts; between cycles of freeze and thaw, and hum and haw.

'Not by much'

Several days before the Earth pitched its northern hemisphere into angles more favorable to sunshine, Eric Evenson, senior meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in South Burlington, apologized for his lack of “gee-whiz numbers.”

But humdrum this winter was not, Evenson confirmed.

Was it colder than normal?

“Absolutely,” he said. “But not by much.”

The first two-thirds of March tells a different story, he added. Slightly below-normal temperatures that began in November have progressed steadily into substantially-below-normal temperatures for what is considered the first month of meteorological spring.

Evenson made his point with data from his outpost at Burlington International Airport in South Burlington.

At his prompting, it turned out that a gee-whiz number did pop up on the weather service website.

The winter portion of March had an average high/low temperature of 20.5 degrees (the normal average is 30 degrees).

That makes this the third-coldest stretch on record since 1900 — a respectable showing.

First place goes to 1916, with a 15.4-degree average; second place belongs to 1984, at 19.3 degrees.

It’s not too late for a full-month cold weather record to topple.

“The record cold average for the full month of March was 16.8, set in 1885,” Evenson said. “We’re not too far off. We’ll have to see how it plays out.”

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In the cellar

We’re nowhere near another, broader baseline — the number of days below zero in a given winter. So far, Burlington has racked up 23 days.

Could it dip below zero again before the final thaw? Unlikely, Evenson said.

But this year’s count isn’t too shabby, he added. Even if we dodge another Arctic plunge, we’ll have matched the winter of 2003-04 in subzero days, and beat (by one day) the winter of 2006-07.

The winter of 2002-03 boasted 28 days below zilch. And that season doesn’t hold a candle to the record 41 sub-zero days that numbed the winter of 1993-94.

Insult to injury: In Burlington’s past 100 years, there have been 58 winters (meteorologically speaking: December, January and February) that were colder than this one, according to the National Weather Service.

Not that many Vermonters have noticed, though, as griping about the perceived length and intensity of this particular winter has been widespread.

Warm thoughts

Number-games and hiber-amnesia aside, Evenson speculated that our perception of a severe winter is rich with other, equally important indices.

An overriding enthusiasm for outdoor winter sports could trump a body’s discomfort levels, for instance. Conversely, the persistence of chill winds and cloud cover might drive up the misery meter.

Evenson included other, better-documented phenomena that could skew our views:

• In Vermont, the 15 months that preceded this winter all registered above-normal temperatures.

The mercury topped out at 43 degrees in Burlington on March 20. Two years ago, the Queen City was basking at 80 degrees.

• In most parts of the Northern Hemisphere (with the exception of central and eastern Canada and the U.S.), this winter has been significantly warmer than normal.

“If people here look around, and they see temperatures way up everywhere else,” Evenson hypothesized, “then they might feel colder.”

With kids

The people definitely felt colder.

And they turned up the heat in their homes, said Matt Cota, executive director of Berlin-based Vermont Fuel Dealers Association.

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The appetite for warmth can be measured — at least in part — by “heating degree days,” a time-tested calculation that pits outside temperatures versus a 65-degree indoor comfort level, Cota said.

That scale, eyed by purveyors of oil, propane and wood pellets, “is not the only tool we have, but it helps determine how much fuel to buy, how much to sell and when to deliver it,” he added.

Records of heating degree days for this winter (up until the vernal equinox) indicate they are up a mere 3.8 percent above normal — but 10.6 percent higher than last year.

As important to keeping tanks and hoppers topped up is a dealer’s appreciation for the needs (physical and psychological) of each customer.

The variables are notoriously idiosyncratic.

“It’s not an exact science,” Cota said. “You have to figure how old a house is, what kind of insulation it has; whether the kids have moved off to college. If they’re no longer at home, showering seven days a week, you’re going to be using less oil.”

Waist not

Higher fuel prices further muddy the assessment of a winter’s severity, Cota said, because many Vermonters simply will dial down the thermostat to accommodate heating budgets.

“They’ll reduce consumption,” he said. “They’ll put on a sweater. Also, Vermonters burn a heck of a lot of wood, in addition to their other fuels. If you want to know what kind a lot of winter it is, watch the wood piles.”

In more urban and suburban corners of the Green Mountain State, evidence of heating fuel use clicks through meters.

Stephen Wark, a spokesman for Vermont Gas Systems, said usage this year was about 10 percent above normal.

Two years ago, Wark added, usage was a bit lower than the baseline — but not by a significant amount.

“In the last couple of years, the colder it’s been, the less likely it is that I’m outside doing something,” he added. “It’s not rocket science. The belt is a little tighter.”

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Motor running

More broadly, human recreation patterns have helped define the winter.

Snowmobilers got off to a slow start due to lack of snow pack in the northern part of the state, said Matt Tetreault, interim executive director of Barre-based Vermont Association of Snow Travelers (VAST).

“We had those warm spells and rain, and then more ice,” Tetreault said in a recent interview. “It threw things off a little bit.

“But just when some people had kind of given up, the snow turned up,” he added. “We still have three-day passes for sale.”

Winter Storm Vulcan (the blizzard that clobbered Vermont earlier this month), colder-than-usual temperatures and more abundant sunlight likely are going to keep VAST members outside for a couple more weeks, Tetreault said.

“Many of the machines actually run better when it’s cold,” Tetreault said.

The good kind

Skiers and snowboarders have benefited more consistently from this winter’s weather than their motorized counterparts.

Advances in snowmaking technology compensated for the snow shortage earlier in the season, said Sarah Wojcik, director of public affairs for the Montpelier-based Vermont Ski Areas Association (better known as Ski Vermont).

“We saw a record number of alpine and cross-country resorts opening before Thanksgiving this season,” Wojcik said.

As with snowmobilers, the mid-winter warm spell slowed the early momentum.

“We bounced back pretty quickly from that with snowmaking, and then all that natural snow,” Wojcik added. “At the end of February, we were definitely a little bit behind last season in skier-days.

“But then, last season was the second best on record, with 4.5 million skier visits,” she said.

And the cascade of low temperatures and heavy snow in March?

“That’s pretty typical,” Wojcik said. “It might help extend the season for another weekend at some of the resorts. It’s been good. And cold.”

Colder cash

The folks who maintain Vermont’s roads saw opposite movement in the ledger books.

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As crews rushed to clear snow that fell on the first day of spring, Agency of Transportation spokesman Erik Filkorn issued a staccato factoid round-up:

• “We have spent $26.2 million on winter maintenance activities to date. We have also used 122,200 tons of salt to date.

• “To put these numbers in context, last year we spent about $26 million on winter maintenance and used roughly 123,000 tons of salt. And it was considered a bad/long winter.

• “Our 5-year average is $20.6 million on winter maintenance, and 87,500 tons of salt.

• “In the past 11 years, we have only broken $20 million four times.

• “The previous record was last year at an official $26.1 million.

• “Say hello to the new VTrans record holder... the winter of Fiscal Year 2014.”

Below-freezing daytime temperatures, meanwhile, have delayed the flow of maple sap from root to tap to pancake.

Longer runs

Other signs of the winter have yet to be interpreted.

Why, for instance, did snowy owls choose this winter to flock to the Northeastern U.S.?

And is there a correlation between the winter’s intensity and the seeming respite in the decimation of hibernating little brown bats due to the fungal white-nose syndrome?

In both cases, definitive evidence is in short supply — and consensus in the scientific community revolves around longer-range cycles we are only beginning to grasp.

Investigations into the effect on weather and climate of decades-long solar rhythms are in full swing at NASA and elsewhere.

University of Vermont geography professor and state climatologist Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux suggests we take a good, long look at Lake Champlain, ice-bound for the first time in seven years.

“Now, let’s extend our view forward,” she said recently. “What are the implications of all of that cooler-than-usual water on the coming summer? What will be the effect of slower evaporation?”

As an instructor and scientist, Dupigny-Giroux advocates for growth in “place-based” climate literacy: local observations that inspire further questions.

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Many of the lines of inquiry she promotes have practical applications. Lake temperatures in late May, for instance, might be of interest to a prospective swimmer. The likelihood of a soggy June could shift wedding plans.

Vermonters already have been warned that heavy March snows and cold temperatures increase the likelihood of a more abrupt spring thaw — and of the potential for heavy stream flooding.

Cruel world

More broadly, Dupigny-Giroux steers scholarship toward adaptation, resilience and emergency planning as the planet moves into a period of more rapid climate change.

Rapid advances in the study of climate, and the general public’s enthusiasm to learn more, add excitement and even urgency to her work, she said: “It keeps me on my toes.”

Our quest to summarize this winter’s significance, in other words, is one that can never — and should never — end.

How about this March cold spell?

It begs an argument with the poet T.S Eliot, who wrote in “The Waste Land” (1922) that April is the cruelest month.